I do a devised theatre project with my middle school group most years, and often it is something aimed at an elementary audience. Usually our focus idea/topic comes from the elementary teachers, then I work with my students to find the right theatrical form for it. We've used more traditional children's theatre style regularly, though we also did a great Forum Theatre piece for Kindergarten once!
Although it doesn't address your poetry idea, one of my favorites was a project for first and second grade, to compliment their study of folk and fairy tales. They wanted us to look at a well-known story in a new way. I chose "Jack and the Beanstalk," as I find the students like the stories that don't have a romance at the center!
First we looked at some of Aaron Shepard's folk tale scripts: I wanted the students to get the idea of direct address to the audience mixed with dialogue, and the idea of using narrators/storytellers. If you haven't seen his work, it is definitely worth a look
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html Then we did a bunch of exploratory work around the characters of Jack, his mother, and the Giant. We used hot-seating, confessional scenes, thoughts-in-the-head, monologues, movement work ... and a lot of improvising new scenes like What conversation do the giant and his wife, or in our case sister, have after the robbery? Which led to a scene in which the giant reports the robbery to the police ... Which led to a scene with the giant and his best friend the goose ... Which led to the giant seeing the school counselor (same name as our school counselor, of course) to discuss his feelings of sadness about missing his pet.
You get the idea. I always use the reflective questions What did that show? What do we know? What do we want to find out? What do we want to show?
We had a large group (27), so when they worked in groups of pairs all on the same idea, that produced a lot of material and a lot of possibilities. There was a lot of discussion throughout about finding the right level of language and ideas for an audience of 6, 7 and 8 year-olds. It was a great learning process for my students.
Overall we spent something like 2 classes on introduction to children's theatre, about 8 classes exploring ideas (it might have been more), 3 or 4 classes focusing and scripting, and then another 5 or so rehearsing (costuming, etc.). I did a lot of work pulling together the script from what the students typed, though a high school group might require less editing. Our final play was in three parts: Jack's story, Mom's story, Giant's story, and we had 3 separate performance groups, which made for more productive rehearsal time in class. It was about 20 minutes long. We could have spent more time, and probably also could have done it more quickly. I like to get the students to do a lot of the selecting and shaping, and to discuss their reasoning, because they learn so much from the process and they really feel the ownership ... but it can be a real time sink! Usually I start with more student autonomy, then later I make choices and explain my reasoning (and I try to be true to their vision).
Other successful projects have been prompted by social skills at recess (with forum theatre), growth mindset sayings (a play about an inventor of a shoe tying machine - "Try, try again, try again a new way ..."), and 'being true to yourself' (in which a kid who is a follower builds a spaceship and travels to a planet where everyone is the same ... then brings one of those alien kids back to visit Earth). The key to their success was that they were driven by the suggestions (needs) of the elementary school teachers. They suggested the subject, and I worked to find the right theatrical form.
And we always try to do a talk back after the show.
I'm always looking for new ideas, so would love to hear about other projects people have done for young audiences ... and now I'm inspired to brainstorm ideas about dramatizing some poetry for children.
Oh, and I forgot to say that I always take advantage of our incredible school librarians for source material! For the play about being true to yourself we started by reading and re-telling in dramatic form a number of children's books on the subject. We ended up creating our own story, but reading the books, feeling the rhythms, and getting used to the age-appropriate language was a great starting point.
I hope this is at least vaguely helpful ... you can tell it is summer when we have time to write long posts!
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Kristin Hall
Drama Director
Lincoln Public Schools
Arlington MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-27-2017 20:48
From: Heidi Frederic
Subject: Children's Theater
This sounds fantastic! I was actually thinking of adding a touring children's show for my level 4 students. This will be the first year I have enough students to have an entire class of level 4's as a class itself without being combined with my level 3's. Our school is on a semester schedule. How long are you going to give your students for writing, rehearsing, etc?
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Heidi Frederic
Theatre Teacher
Ascension Parish School District
Gonzales LA
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2017 09:06
From: Dawn DeMaio
Subject: Children's Theater
This year, students wrote original scripts based on famous fairytales with a twist and it was very successful. I was hoping to change it up every year. Next year, I'd like to base the scripts on movement to poetry initially and then develop scripts from there. I am looking to add more theater education content for younger students as well. This year, we did begin the show with a prince and princess of theatre etiquette prologue.
I am now hoping to create an entire unit for an advanced high school class and eventually tour original pieces throughout the district. I am looking for more content on how to teach the elements of children's theater, specifically, and any other anticipatory or culminating projects that you might have that were successful.
Thank you very much!
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Dawn DeMaio
Theater Teacher/ Director
GW Hewlett High School
Hewlett, NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2017 11:08
From: Frieda Gebert
Subject: Children's Theater
I love this idea! I can't wait to see the responses. Meanwhile, did your students write their own fairytales "with a twist," or did you find scripts elsewhere? And did you include any theater education content in your presentations for the elementary schools? Thanks for letting me pick your brain a bit.